Archaeological Investigations at Yourhaney Plantation (38GE18)

222The Kimbel series pottery was manufactured by coiling or annular rings. It is tempered with finesand and clay and is often correctly identified as non-tempered. It has a fine texture with a hardcompact paste, which may glisten from small quartz grains or mica inclusions. Both interior andexterior surfaces are smoothed or occasionally imperfectly polished or burnished. Burnish facetsare occasionally visible. Kimbel series pottery illustrated by Trinkley et al. (1983) were either plainor simple stamped.Clement et al. (2001) found a minor quantity of Kimbel series pottery on Sandy Island at the CooterCreek site (38GE469) originally identified by Barse et al. (1999). However, no Wachesaw seriespottery was recognized at this site. The previous survey of the entire island by Barse et al. (1999)identified no Wachesaw or Kimbel series pottery. Other researchers who have worked in the area(John Cable, Chris Judge, and Carl Steen, personal communication 2005) have never seen eitherceramic type suggesting that it is rare and isolated.At Yauhannah Bluff, no Wachesaw or Kimbel series sherds were identified in the collection. Therewere quite a few colonoware sherds, but it is highly doubtful that they could have been mistakenfor Kimbel series pottery. An examination of the artifact analysis notes belonging to Jim Michie, BillWeeks, and Susan McMillan indicated that they saw no ceramics that appeared to represent thesetypes as well. Mr. Michie had worked at Wachesaw Landing after Trinkley identified those potterytypes and would have been well aware of what they should look like. The absence of Wachesawand Kimbel series ceramics in the Michie collection was corroborated with Bill Weeks who alsoworked at Wachesaw Landing (Bill Weeks personal communication, August 2005).Work by Steen et al. (1998) at the site of what they believed was 18 th century Pee Dee Town inMarion County found burnished wares somewhat similar to the Kimbel series. However, they couldnot tell some of them apart from 18 th and 19 th century historic Catawba Indian trade wares. Also,almost all the plain and burnished ware were thicker and their pastes were sandier than classic“Catawba” ceramics, and few were associated with historic occupations. Therefore, they couldpredate the 18 th century. In sum, the burnished wares at Pee Dee town could not be clearlyassigned to the historic Indian occupation of the site. Further work is needed to find sealedcontexts with clearly datable artifacts associated with the known historic occupation of Pee Deetown.In sum, no clearly historic Native American ceramics were identified in the collection from theYauhannah Bluff site with the exception of the one possible Ashley sherd. Additional discussion ofhistoric Native American ceramics is provided in the discussion of colonoware and in particular,the variety called Colonial Burnished.Despite the absence of ceramics associated with free historic Indians in the area investigated,historic maps indicate that this portion of the Pee Dee River was well known by historic Indiangroups as indicated by the various Indian place names shown on the 1757 DeBrahms map. Itshould be remembered that the portion off 38GE18 investigated was the area that contained thebulk of the historic materials. The remainder of 38GE18 contains much denser Native Americanremains and it is entirely possible that a substantial historic Native American occupation will, atsome point, be identified there. Given the importance of the area to historic Native Americans, thisspeculation seems highly likely.